Books: Hira Singh
T >>
Talbot Mundy >> Hira Singh
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 | 6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19
"So is this the trap Ranjoor Singh would lead us into?" said the
trooper nearest me, and though he spoke low, so still were we all
that fifty men heard him and murmured. So I spoke up.
Said I, "We will answer when we shall have spoken again with Ranjoor
Singh. He shall give our answer. It is right that a regiment should
answer through its officer, and any other course is lacking
discipline!"
Sahib, I have been surprised a thousand times in this war, but not
once more surprised than by the instant effect my answer had. It was
a random answer, made while I searched for some argument to use; but
the German spokesman turned at once and translated to the officers
in uniform. Watching them very closely, I saw them laugh, and it
seemed to me they approved my answer and disapproved some other
matter. I think they disapproved the civilian method of mingling
with us in a mob, for a moment later the order was given us in
English to fall in, and we fell in two deep. Then the civilian
Germans drew aside and one of the officers in uniform strode toward
the entrance gate. We waited in utter silence, wondering what next,
but the officer had not been gone ten minutes when we caught sight
of him returning with Ranjoor Singh striding along beside him.
Ranjoor Singh and he advanced toward us and I saw Ranjoor Singh
speak with him more emphatically than his usual custom. Evidently
Ranjoor Singh had his way, for the officer spoke in German to the
others and they all walked out of the compound in a group, leaving
Ranjoor Singh facing us. He waited until the gate clanged shut
behind them before he spoke.
"Well?" said he. "I was told the regiment asked for word with me.
What is the word?"
"Sahib," said I, standing out alone before the men, not facing him,
but near one end of the line, so that I could raise my voice with
propriety and all the men might hear. He backed away, to give more
effect to that arrangement. "Sahib," I said, "we are in a trap.
Either we go to the mines, or we fight for the Germans against the
British. What is your word on the matter?"
"Ho!" said he. "Is it as bad as that? As bad as that?" said he. "If
ye go to the mines to dig coal, they will use that coal to make
ammunition for their guns! That seems a poor alternative! They fight
as much with ammunition as with men!"
"Sahib," said I, "it is worse than that! They seek to compel us to
sign a paper, forswearing our allegiance to Great Britain and
claiming allegiance to them! Should we sign it, that makes us out
traitors in the first place, and makes us amenable to their law in
the second place. They could shoot us if we disobeyed or demurred."
"They could do that in the mines," said he, "if you failed to dig
enough coal to please them. They would call it punishment for
malingering--or some such name. If they take it into their heads to
have you all shot, doubt not they will shoot!"
"Yet in that case," said I, "we should not be traitors."
"I will tell you a story," said he, and we held our breath to
listen, for this was his old manner. This had ever been his way of
putting recruits at ease and of making a squadron understand. In
that minute, for more than a minute, men forgot they had ever
suspected him.
"When I was a little one," said he, "my mother's aunt, who was an
old hag, told me this tale. There was a pack of wolves that hunted
in a forest near a village. In the village lived a man who wished to
be headman. Abdul was his name, and he had six sons. He wished to be
headman that he might levy toll among the villagers for the up-keep
of his sons, who were hungry and very proud. Now Abdul was a cunning
hunter, and his sons were strong. So he took thought, and chose a
season carefully, and set his sons to dig a great trap. And so well
had Abdul chosen--so craftily the six sons digged--that one night
they caught all that wolf-pack in the trap. And they kept them in
the trap two days and a night, that they might hunger and thirst and
grow amenable.
"Then Abdul leaned above the pit, and peered down at the wolves and
began to bargain with them. 'Wolves,' said he, 'your fangs be long
and your jaws be strong, and I wish to be headman of this village.'
And they answered, 'Speak, Abdul, for these walls be high, and our
throats be dry, and we wish to hunt again!' So he bade them promise
that if he let them go they would seek and slay the present headman
and his sons, so that he might be headman in his place. And the
wolves promised. Then when he had made them swear by a hundred oaths
in a hundred different ways, and had bound them to keep faith by God
and by earth and sky and sea and by all the holy things he could
remember, he stood aside and bade his six sons free the wolves.
"The sons obeyed, and helped the wolves out of the trap. And
instantly the wolves fell on all six sons, and slew and devoured
them. Then they came and stood round Abdul with their jaws dripping
with blood.
"'Oh, wolves,' said he, trembling with fear and anger, 'ye are
traitors! Ye are forsworn! Ye are faithless ones!'
"But they answered him, 'Oh, Abdul, shall he who knows not false
from true judge treason?' and forthwith they slew him and devoured
him, and went about their business.
"Now, which had the right of that--Abdul or the wolves?"
"We are no wolves!" said Gooja Singh in a whining voice. "We be true
men!"
"Then I will tell you another story," Ranjoor Singh answered him.
And we listened again, as men listen to the ticking of a clock.
"This is a story the same old woman, my mother's aunt, told me when
I was very little.
"There was a man--and this man's name also was Abdul--who owned a
garden, and in it a fish-pond. But in the fish-pond were no fish.
Abdul craved fish to swim hither and thither in his pond, but though
he tried times out of number he could catch none. Yet at fowling he
had better fortune, and when he was weary one day of fishing and
laid his net on land he caught a dozen birds.
"'So-ho!' said Abdul, being a man much given to thought, and he went
about to strike a bargain. 'Oh, birds,' said he, 'are ye willing to
be fish? For I have no fishes swimming in my pond, yet my heart
desires them greatly. So if ye are willing to be fish and will stay
in my good pond and swim there, gladdening my eyes, I will abstain
from killing you but instead will set you in the pond and let you
live.'
"So the birds, who were very terrified, declared themselves willing
to be fish, and the birds swore even more oaths than he insisted on,
so that he was greatly pleased and very confident. Therefore he used
not very much precaution when he came to plunge the birds into the
water, and the instant he let go of them the birds with feathers
scarcely wet flew away and perched on the trees about him.
"Then Abdul grew very furious. 'Oh, birds,' said he, 'ye are
traitors. Ye are forsworn! Ye are liars--breakers of oaths--
deceitful ones!' And he shook his fist at them and spat, being
greatly enraged and grieved at their deception.
"But the birds answered him, 'Oh, Abdul, a captive's gyves and a
captive's oath are one, and he who rivets on the one must keep the
other!' And the birds flew away, but Abdul went to seek his advocate
to have the law of them! Now, what think ye was the advocate's
opinion in the matter, and what remedy had Abdul?"
Has the sahib ever seen three hundred men all at the same time
becoming conscious of the same idea? That is quite a spectacle.
There was no whispering, nor any movement except a little shifting
of the feet. There was nothing on which a watchful man could lay a
finger. Yet between one second and the next they were not the same
men, and I, who watched Ranjoor Singh's eyes as if he were my
opponent in a duel, saw that he was aware of what had happened,
although not surprised. But he made no sign except the shadow of one
that I detected, and he did not change his voice--as yet.
"As for me," he said, telling a tale again, "I wrote once on the
seashore sand and signed my name beneath. A day later I came back to
look, but neither name nor words remained. I was what I had been,
and stood where the sea had been, but what I had written in sand
affected me not, neither the sea nor any man. Thought I, if one had
lent me money on such a perishable note the courts would now hold
him at fault, not me; they would demand evidence, and all he could
show them would be what he had himself bargained for. Now it occurs
to me that seashore sand, and the tricks of rogues, and blackmail,
and tyranny perhaps are one!"
Eye met eye, all up and down both lines of men. There was swift
searching of hearts, and some of the men at my end of the line began
talking in low tones. So I spoke up and voiced aloud what troubled
them.
"If we sign this paper, sahib," said I, "how do we know they will
not find means of bringing it to the notice of the British?"
"We do not know," he answered. "Let us hope. Hope is a great good
thing. If they chained us, and we broke the chains, they might send
the broken links to London in proof of what thieves we be. Who would
gain by that?"
I saw a very little frown now and knew that he judged it time to
strike on the heated metal. But Gooja Singh turned his back on
Ranjoor Singh.
"Let him sign this thing," said he, "and let us sign our names
beneath his name. Then he will be in the same trap with us all, and
must lead us out of it or perish with us!"
So Gooja Singh offered himself, all unintentionally, to be the
scapegoat for us all and I have seldom seen a man so shocked by what
befell him. Only a dozen words spoke Ranjoor Singh--yet it was as if
he lashed him and left him naked. Whips and a good man's wrath are
one.
"Who gave thee leave to yelp?" said he, and Gooja Singh faced about
like a man struck. By order of the Germans he and I stood in the
place of captains on parade, he on the left and I on the right.
"To your place!" said Ranjoor Singh.
Gooja Singh stepped back into line with me, but Ranjoor Singh was
not satisfied.
"To your place in the rear!" he ordered. And so I have seen a man
who lost a lawsuit slink round a corner of the court.
Then I spoke up, being stricken with self-esteem at the sight of
Gooja Singh's shame (for I always knew him to be my enemy).
"Sahib," said I, "shall I pass down the line and ask each man
whether he will sign what the Germans ask?"
"Aye!" said he, "like the carrion crows at judgment! Halt!" he
ordered, for already I had taken the first step. "When I need to
send a havildar," said he, "to ask my men's permission, I will call
for a havildar! To the rear where you belong!" he ordered. And I
went round to the rear, knowing something of Gooja Singh's
sensations, but loving him no better for the fellow-feeling. When my
footfall had altogether ceased and there was silence in which one
could have heard an insect falling to the ground, Ranjoor Singh
spoke again. "There has been enough talk," said he. "In pursuance of
a plan, I intend to sign whatever the Germans ask. Those who prefer
not to sign what I sign--fall out! Fall out, I say!"
Not a man fell out, sahib. But that was not enough for Ranjoor
Singh.
"Those who intend to sign the paper,--two paces forward,--march!"
said he. And as one man we took two paces forward.
"So!" said he. "Right turn!" And we turned to the right. "Forward!
Quick march!" he ordered. And he made us march twice in a square
about him before he halted us again and turned us to the front to
face him. Then he was fussy about our alignment, making us take up
our dressing half a dozen times; and when he had us to his
satisfaction finally he stood eying us for several minutes before
turning his back and striding with great dignity toward the gate.
He talked through the gate and very soon a dozen Germans entered,
led by two officers in uniform and followed by three soldiers
carrying a table and a chair. The table was set down in their midst,
facing us, and the senior German officer--in a uniform with a very
high collar--handed a document to Ranjoor Singh. When he had
finished reading it to himself he stepped forward and read it aloud
to us. It was in Punjabi, excellently rendered, and the gist of it
was like this:
We, being weary of British misrule, British hypocrisy, and British
arrogance, thereby renounced allegiance to Great Britain, its king
and government, and begged earnestly to be permitted to fight on the
side of the Central Empires in the cause of freedom. It was
expressly mentioned, I remember, that we made this petition of our
own initiative and of our own free will, no pressure having been
brought to bear on us, and nothing but kindness having been offered
us since we were taken prisoners.
"That is what we are all required to sign," said Ranjoor Singh, when
he had finished reading, and he licked his lips in a manner I had
never seen before.
Without any further speech to us, he sat down at the table and wrote
his name with a great flourish on the paper, setting down his rank
beside his name. Then he called to me, and I sat and wrote my name
below his, adding my rank also. And Gooja Singh followed me. After
him, in single file, came every surviving man of Outram's Own. Some
men scowled, and some men laughed harshly, and if one of our race
had been watching on the German behalf he would have been able to
tell them something. But the Germans mistook the scowls for signs of
anger at the British, and the laughter they mistook for rising
spirits, so that the whole affair passed off without arousing their
suspicion.
Nevertheless, my heart warned me that the Germans would not trust a
regiment seduced as we were supposed to have been. And, although
Ranjoor Singh had had his way with us, the very having had destroyed
the reawakening trust in him. The troopers felt that he had led them
through the gates of treason. I could feel their thoughts as a man
feels the breath of coming winter on his cheek.
When the last man had signed we stood at attention and a wagonload
of rifles was brought in, drawn by oxen. They gave a rifle to each
of us, and we were made to present arms while the German military
oath was read aloud. After that the Germans walked away as if they
had no further interest. Only Ranjoor Singh remained, and he gave us
no time just then for comment or discontent.
The mauser rifles were not so very much unlike our own, and he set
us to drilling with them, giving us patient instruction but very
little rest until evening. During the longest pause in the drill he
sent for knapsacks and served us one each, filled down to the
smallest detail with everything a soldier could need, even to a
little cup that hung from a hook beneath one corner. We were utterly
worn out when he left us at nightfall, but there was a lot of
talking nevertheless before men fell asleep.
"This is the second time he has trapped us in deadly earnest!" was
the sum of the general complaint they hurled at me. And I had no
answer to give them, knowing well that if I took his part I should
share his condemnation--which would not help him; neither would it
help them nor me.
"My thought, of going to the mines and being troublesome, was best!"
said I. "Ye overruled me. Now ye would condemn me for not preventing
you! Ye are wind blowing this way and that!"
They were so busy defending themselves to themselves against that
charge that they said no more until sleep fell on them; and at dawn
Ranjoor Singh took hold of us again and made us drill until our feet
burned on the gravel and our ears were full of the tramp--tramp--
tramp, and the ek--do--tin of manual exercise.
"Listen!" said he to me, when he had dismissed us for dinner, and I
lingered on parade. "Caution the men that any breach of discipline
would be treated under German military law by drum-head court
martial and sentence of death by shooting. Advise them to avoid
indiscretions of any kind," said he.
So I passed among them, pretending the suggestion was my own, and
they resented it, as I knew they would. But I observed from about
that time they began to look on Ranjoor Singh as their only possible
protector against the Germans, so that their animosity against him
was offset by self-interest.
The next day came a staff officer who marched us to the station,
where a train was waiting. Impossible though it may seem, sahib, to
you who listen, I felt sad when I looked back at the huts that had
been our prison, and I think we all did. We had loathed them with
all our hearts all summer long, but now they represented what we
knew and we were marching away from them to what we knew not, with
autumn and winter brooding on our prospects.
Not all our wounded had been returned to us; some had died in the
German hospitals.. Two hundred-and-three-and-thirty of us all told,
including Ranjoor Singh, lined up on the station platform--fit and
well and perhaps a little fatter than was seemly.
Having no belongings other than the rifles and knapsacks and what we
stood in it took us but a few moments to entrain. Almost at once the
engine whistled and we were gone, wondering whither. Some of the
troopers shouted to Ranjoor Singh to ask our destination, but he
affected not to hear. The German staff officer rode in the front
compartment alone, and Ranjoor Singh rode alone in the next behind
him; but they conversed often through the window, and at stations
where the two of them got out to stretch their legs along the
platform they might have been brothers-in-blood relating love-
affairs. Our troopers wondered.
"Our fox grows gray," said they, "and his impudence increases."
"Would it help us out of this predicament," said I, "if he smote
that German in the teeth and spat on him?"
They laughed at that and passed the remark along from window to
window, until I roared at them to keep their heads in. There were
seven of us non-commissioned officers, and we rode in one
compartment behind the officers' carriage, Gooja Singh making much
unpleasantness because there was not enough room for us all to lie
full length at once. We were locked into our compartment, and the
only chance we had of speaking with Ranjoor Singh was when they
brought us food at stations and he strode down the train to see that
each man had his share.
"What is our destination?" we asked him then, repeatedly.
"If ye be true men," he answered, "why are ye troubled about
destination? Can the truth lead you into error? Do I seem afraid?"
said he.
That was answer enough if we had been the true men we claimed to be,
and he gave us no other. So we watched the sun and tried to guess
roughly, I recalling all the geography I ever knew, yet failing to
reach conclusions that satisfied myself or any one. We knew that
Turkey was in the war, and we knew that Bulgaria was not. Yet we
traveled eastward, and southeastward.
I know now that we traveled over the edge of Germany into Austria,
through Austria into Hungary, and through a great part of Hungary to
the River Danube, growing so weary of the train that I for one
looked back to the Flanders trenches as to long-lost happiness!
Every section of line over which we traveled was crowded with
traffic, and dozens of German regiments kept passing and re-passing
us. Some cheered us and some were insulting, but all of them
regarded us with more or less astonishment.
The Austrians were more openly curious about us than the Germans had
been, and some of them tried to get into conversation, but this was
not encouraged; when they climbed on the footboards to peer through
the windows and ask us questions officers ordered them away.
Of all the things we wondered at on that long ride, the German
regiments impressed us most. Those that passed and repassed us were
mostly artillery and infantry, and surely in all the world before
there never were such regiments as those--with the paint worn off
their cannon, and their clothes soiled, yet with an air about them
of successful plunderers, confident to the last degree of arrogance
in their own efficiency--not at all like British regiments, nor like
any others that I ever saw. It was Ranjoor Singh who drew my
attention to the fact that regiments passing us in one direction
would often pass us again on their way back, sometimes within the
day.
"As shuttles in a loom!" said he. "As long as they can do that they
can fight on a dozen fronts." His words set me wondering so that I
did not answer him. He was speaking through our carriage window and
I stared out beyond him at a train-load of troops on the far side of
the station.
"One comes to us," said I. I was watching a German sergeant, who had
dragged his belongings from that train and was crossing toward us.
"Aye!" said Ranjoor Singh, so that I knew now there had been purpose
in his visit. "Beware of him." Then he unlocked the carriage door
and waited for the German. The German came, and cursed the man who
bore his baggage, and halted before Ranjoor Singh, staring into his
face with a manner of impudence new to me. Ranjoor Singh spoke about
ten words to him in German and the sergeant there and then saluted
very respectfully. I noticed that the German staff officer was
watching all this from a little distance, and I think the sergeant
caught his eye.
At any rate, the sergeant made his man throw the baggage through our
compartment door. The man returned to the other train. The sergeant
climbed in next to me. Ranjoor Singh locked the door again, and both
trains proceeded. When our train was beginning to gain speed the
newcomer shoved me in the ribs abruptly with his elbow--thus.
"So much for knowing languages!" said he to me in fairly good
Punjabi. "Curse the day I ever saw India, and triple-curse this
system of ours that enabled them to lay finger on me in a moving
train and transfer me to this funeral procession! Curse you, and
curse this train, and curse all Asia!" Then he thrust me in the ribs
again, as if that were a method of setting aside formality.
"You know Cawnpore?" said he, and I nodded.
"You know the Kaiser-i-hind Saddle Factory?"
I nodded again, being minded to waste no words because of Ranjoor
Singh's warning.
"I took a job as foreman there twenty years ago because the pay was
good. I lived there fifteen years until I was full to the throat of
India--Indian food, Indian women, Indian drinks, Indian heat, Indian
smells, Indian everything. I hated it, and threw up the job in the
end. Said I to myself, 'Thank God,' said I, 'to see the last of
India.' And I took passage on a German steamer and drank enough
German beer on the way to have floated two ships her size! Aecht
Deutches bier, you understand," said he, nudging me in the ribs with
each word. Aecht means REAL, as distinguished from the export stuff
in bottles. "I drank it by the barrel, straight off ice, and it went
to my head!
"That must be why I boasted about knowing Indian languages before I
had been two hours in port. I was drunk, and glad to be home, and on
the lookout for another job to keep from starving; so I boasted I
could speak and write Urdu and Punjabi. That brought me employment
in an export house. But who would have guessed it would end in my
being dragged away from my regiment to march with a lot of Sikhs?
Eh? Who would have guessed it? There goes my regiment one way, and
here go I another! What's our destination? God knows! Who are you,
and what are you? God neither knows nor cares! What's to be the end
of this? The end of me, I expect--and all because I got drunk on the
way home! It I get alive out of this," said he, "I'll get drunk once
for the glory of God and then never touch beer again!"
And he struck me on the thigh with his open palm. The noise was like
powder detonating, and the pain was acute. I cursed him in his teeth
and he grinned at me as if he and I were old friends. Little blue
eyes he had, sahib--light blue, set in full red cheeks. There were
many little red veins crisscrossed under the skin of his face, and
his breath smelt of beer and tobacco. I judged he had the physical
strength of a buffalo, although doubtless short of wind.
He had very little hair. Such as he had was yellow, but clipped so
short that it looked white. His yellow mustache was turned up thus
at either corner of his mouth; and the mouth was not unkind, not
without good humor.
"What is your name?" said I.
"Tugendheim," said he. "I am Sergeant Fritz Tugendheim, of the 281
(Pappenheim) Regiment of Infantry, and would God I were with my
regiment! What do they call you?"
"Hira Singh," said I.
"And your rank?"
"Havildar," said I.
"Oh-ho!" said he. "So you're all non-commissioned in here, are you?
Seven of you, eh? Seven is a lucky number! Well---" He looked us
each slowly in the face, narrowing his eyes so that we could
scarcely see them under the yellow lashes. "Well," said he, "they
won't mistake me for any of you, nor any of you for me--not even if
I should grow whiskers!"
He laughed at that joke for about two minutes, slapping me on the
thigh again and laughing all the louder when I showed my teeth. Then
he drew out a flask of some kind of pungent spirits from his pocket,
and offered it to me. When I refused he drank the whole of it
himself and flung the glass flask through the window. Then he
settled himself in the corner from which he had ousted me, put his
feet on the edge of the seat opposite, and prepared to sleep. But
before very long our German staff officer shouted for him and he
went in great haste, a station official opening the door for him and
locking us in again afterward. He rode for hours with the staff
officer and Gooja Singh examined the whole of his kit, making
remarks on each piece, to the great amusement of us all.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 | 6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19